- The value that technology brings to adaptation does not lie so much in cutting-edge performance or breakthroughs but rather in applying existing technologies to solve very specific and local problems at an acceptable financial, environmental, and social cost for all stakeholders involved. This points to adaptation-focused low-cost design as a key lever for innovation.
- Some functional expectations recur no matter the adaptation future under consideration, including climate-proofing the business footprint, protecting the workforce, and maintaining productivity. These expectations are addressed by a number of mature, off-the-shelf technologies, the implementation of which is a no-regret move because they will prove useful in most futures and for a large range of industries. These include GIS, advanced warning systems, thermal comfort systems, water recycling systems, robots, and drones.
- Most of these solutions are supported, fully or in part, by three major technological enablers: (1) IoT for data collection, (2) augmented and virtual reality for simulation, and (3) AI including computer vision and GNNs. These three bricks are at least dual-use, in that they serve both adaptation and productivity purposes (e.g., by unlocking the benefits of the industrial metaverse) — making them definite drivers of competitive advantage in the future. Building capabilities for data science, flexible risk assessment, complex systems, design in a context of scarcity, and striking local partnerships will be essential to reap the benefits of these technological bricks for adaptation.
- Beyond these common solutions, enablers, and capabilities, there is no single best approach to solve adaptation challenges. What is needed is a nuanced consideration of the impact of a business’s ecosystem on its operations, and vice versa, to identify the most relevant solutions. Climate change will become an increasingly consequential constraint on business strategy and forward planning. By 2040 and beyond, we may already be in a situation where adaptation strategy has become almost inseparable from business strategy.
- Technology alone will not solve adaptation challenges. As our future projections illustrate, the effectiveness of adaptation responses will be the result of how governments, businesses, societies, and individuals interact and behave. In particular, it is both very uncertain and very consequential whether consumers change habits, whether regulation is enacted, whether financial mechanisms are developed and funds unlocked, and whether large companies assume leadership in adaptation.
- Adaptation tends to require localized solutions, yet focusing only on self-interest, discrete outcomes and “tried and true” metrics will fail to address the system-level global challenges and increase the risk of maladaptation solutions where the remedy is worse than the cure. Behaviors toward adaptation are prone to the prisoner’s dilemma: is it better to postpone costly adaptation investments and maintain competitive advantage or to invest now and rely on others to do the same for mutual benefit?
- The way out of the dilemma requires a new type of collaboration between governments, local communities, businesses, and individuals that combines local, national, and global system–level interests and challenges. Such collaboration is extremely challenging to achieve and will involve painful trade-offs. Nevertheless, change does come from necessity. Businesses will play a key role in shaping this future and ensuring that “wait-and-see” does not result in lasting damage.